Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Getting on with things

One of the things that I talk about on here quite frequently, at which point my readership collectively sighs while thinking "Oh God, she's not going to talk about her hair again. Seriously, how much can one person be obsessive about her own hair" at which point I realise that this post will contain mention of my hair and I probably shouldn't make jokes about the fact that I ramble about inconsequential things, such as hair and shopping and weight loss/gain, just in case people start rebelling against my shallowness and do something to end the banality, like forcing me to watch the news and current affairs pogrammes a la Clockwork Orange. Wow, that sentence never even came to a proper conclusion. I'll start again. One of the things that I talk about on here quite frequently is the pressure of being a grown up and how successful I feel I am in this capacity. Normally I come pretty shy of any target of grown-uppedness, see above re: shallow. But I'm starting to think that I am measuring this in the wrong way, namely by comparing myself to other people infinitely more capable and mature, where I should really measure myself against my own achievements and changes. Himself and Herself are marvels and not necessarily people that I could ever hope to match in terms of braininess, organisation, time management and emotional maturity (and I can feel them blush as I type) so there is no comparison. I also strongly suspect that their science-y brains have devised some sort of time travel device so that they genuinely do have more hours in the day than everybody else. Of course, it's always possible that they just don't waste any time, but I think this is rather far-fetched.

However, recently, I am starting to think that I am actually getting there. Not in the way that I thought would happen where I would suddenly know exactly what I'm doing and be in control all the time. But I am doing things that are good for me and trying harder to make the right decisions about things that crop up in my life and I think it's the fact that I am, at least, trying to be better. I may fail, and already have, several times but it is in the trying and in the owning of the failures, rather than blaming other people or circumstances for something where the fault is mine, that is the key to it all.

I think that the last few days have presented opportunities for me to really realise what it is that I want and to try and claim it. For the first time, I have been able to own my appearance in the perspective of what I want to do. The fact that I am a little funny looking makes me distinctive, not wrong. I have made some moves to be the sort of friend I would prefer to be, more likely to make the first move and stop fretting so much about the little things. I am feeling more positive than I have for a long time and I hope it lasts. Thanks for sticking with me, gentle reader.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Random Acts of Meanness

I don't understand unnecessary meanness. Now, I'm not always that nice and was occasionally told off by MuleBoy for excessive rudeness to people. On one occasion, he did catch the rudeness but not the reason as one of his colleagues who I met for the first time asked me the same question in a couple of minutes so my second answer was rather shorter than my first, which had been quite pleasant and enthusiastic. On another occasion, I was told off for being mean to his now-girlfriend because she was starting to edge in on my territory and I am pissed off in retrospect that I apologised to her. So I am no stranger to the mean; I have little patience and am a bit of a bitch. However, what I don't understand is being mean to innocent bystanders. On several occasions, I have just walked past somebody and had an insult shouted at me and I'm sure that this is a shared experience (I hope it is, otherwise this implies that my mere presence is enough to rile people to the extent that insulting me is the only option). Last night, I had one of these experiences and it was one of those things that made me question not myself but just the mentality of other people. While waiting for the loo in a pub last night, a drunk guy, waiting for his equally drunk but much funnier girlfriend to come out (we waited together for a few minutes and she kept confiding things to me in a stage whisper about how drunk she thought she might be), started talking to me. He asked me if I was pregnant and my heart just sank. I said no and he said, no, you are, when's it due? I said, I'm not pregnant, I'm fat, and then he tried to touch my stomach at which point I told him to fuck off and walked away at speed. I don't mind people thinking I'm fat because I think I am too. I do mind strangers telling me I am, because their motive is to try and hurt me, otherwise why would they say anything at all?

On the flip-side, for some reason it reminded me of something that happened last year that, whether for the right reasons or not, gave me something of a warm feeling. I was walking home from work and had fallen into step behind a petite girl. I noticed that we were coming past a group of blokes, drinking beer and got that sense of dread that one gets in that situation. They shouted a comment at the girl in front, and I was surprised that they were complimenting her eyes. Then they shouted a comment at me and it was "look at that lovely red hair". I was really taken aback. It was almost as if they were going out of their way to be nice, and not in a predatory, sexual way. So, thinking about it, I might start talking randomly to strangers and tell them nice things. It's odd but, ultimately, quite nice!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

New Year

I think it's appropriate to write something new year-y. Like Beanie, my overriding desire is to say a resounding "fuck off" to 2007. What a pile of shite this year has been. Characterised by heartbreak, fear and bereavement, it is very hard to see the good. At work, despite vowing to be more conscientious, I have been spun away from my good intentions and have spent long hours unaware of time passing and things going undone. The people I grew up with are all earning huge amounts more than me and I feel that I have wasted so much time. With my friends, I have continued to be selfish and inconsiderate and, most of all, lazy. I don't know where I stand with half of them, the smallest thing makes me want to run and hide and I often feel that they look at me and think me ridiculous or stupid. I keep having tiny fits of fear where I panic about things, whether it's the wedding where I will see Muleboy and I have managed to gain a stone and my hair looks like shite. At the wedding, where the most I felt was an overriding sense of oddness, I found out he is now living near me and spent a couple of hours in town today afraid that I'd see him and fretting about what I would do if I did. I cook up little Bette Davis style quips that would be perfect but know I'd forget them or stammer them if I saw him.

For my New Year celebrations, I stayed at home, alone. I had phonecalls from Big Sis and my parents, both at separate parties and both of which I was invited to, wishing me a Happy New Year. I ate a great deal of chocolate, drank some fizzy wine and cried a lot. I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again. It is my favourite film. This title has been a shifting target in the past but this has stayed at the number one spot for a while, probably since I first watched it. There is nothing about it I don't like. It was painful as it is something that makes me think of MuleBoy. We always said that he is Joel and I am Clem. Watching it again, I think this is fair. He chose me because he saw in me something that could rescue him from his life; something that was exotic and different to that that he had experienced before. I chose him because he was decent and good and seemed like a safe harbour. In the end, my difference became something that pushed him away, he could never cope with the fact that I did not, actually, complete him. Which explains why he would choose someone else; so safe, so dull, so much more like an actual girlfriend should be. And so much for my safe harbour. I toyed with the idea, when in New York, to take the train to Montauk to see if it would work and he would be there but he wouldn't have been and it would have been a day in New York wasted. He was never as romantic or as aware of my wishes and feelings as I would have liked. If I am honest, and for some reason I am being, there was part of me that wanted more and was scared about getting married because being in love with him was never the way I expected it. I never expected something extraordinary but I did want more than I got. He always expected me to know that he loved me without him saying anything, he made it clear at times that he resented my presence and got angry when I cried and wanted more from him. He quite often made it difficult for me to spend time with other people and expected me to bend over backwards for him without giving in return. I sometimes wonder what I was thinking but look back and try to remember that in there, when I still was, the good times outweighed the bad. It is all that has happened since then that has made this so difficult to remember. The fact that there was so much deceit in the last couple of months. The fact that he expected me to come straight back to him without any effort to change or to try and actually win me back in any way, as though the fact of him asking should be enough to wipe out the time that I have spent in pain. The fact that him asking has been rendered insincere by his relationship with someone else and he hasn't even tried to redress that in any way. He is a coward and not anywhere near the man that I hoped he was.

The last paragraph underlines another negative point; that I am obsessed still with the situation and will try to harp on about it despite the fact that other people are bored with it and dealing with their own, far more interesting, lives. When my friends are going through happy and sad times of their own, how can I continue with these lines of thought? Shouldn't I be over it by now? Shouldn't I have dealt with it and moved on? But I don't even know how to begin.

So my New Year's Resolutions have to be for me to change my life for the better. It may be in small ways to begin with but that should eventually lead to an overall change. I will eventually come through this and be less insecure, less fat, more focussed. I may occasionally wish that my memory could be erased by Lacuna Inc, but, as the film makes clear, we make mistakes but if we don't learn from them we are doomed to repeat them. I know what I want now. I know where I went wrong. I want to do better.